State Costs and Prison Funding: Insights from Human Rights Observers

Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Human Rights Council reporting to the President, noted that detaining a prisoner for a full day costs the state between two and three thousand rubles. She also pointed out that payments are deducted from inmates who work in the colony for public services, a detail provided by the NSN press center. The mechanism is straightforward: prisoners who work and earn a modest wage see portions of their pay allocated to utility bills, a practice that effectively contributes to their own upkeep while they are incarcerated. In the pre-trial detention centers there is a different reality, where productive work is not possible and the idea of starting production is simply not on the table, according to Merkacheva.